There are significant benefits of associated with a modular scanner that include a sheet fed scanning device with a dockable accessory that provides for platen scanning functionality. Such a device offers the scanner customer a high degree of flexibility in how they configure their scanners, which results in purchase savings as well as desktop footprint savings. A means of providing this functionality with improved ease of use would increase this overall value.
Essentially the customer can choose to equip or not equip their sheet fed scanners with a dockable platen accessory. In many cases this is desirable because many customers within the production scanning segment of the industry (scanner that are used within businesses to scan daily volumes of documents that range from several hundred to tens of thousands per day) purchase multiple scanners to accomplish their imaging. Customers prefer to purchase the same scanner for their imaging needs because this allows them to acquire their images in exactly the same manner with the same image quality characteristics as opposed to using different scanning devices that may function in a different manner or produce unlike image quality results. This reduces the needs on operator training and eliminates the needs for different setups.
In addition to preserving the same functions and same quality images, staying with one type and manufacture of scanner can greatly reduce the costs and effort associated with integrating the scanners into their overall imaging and workflow systems. Integrations generally involve several hardware and software elements to accept the images from the scanner, extract required fields of information, provide the images to the enterprise for workflow and provide an archival means. Since platen scanning represent only a small percentage of the daily scans made, the ability to outfit only a percentage of machines required to accommodate the necessary volume of documents that require a platen, allows the customer to save the cost of this functionality and it's associated footprint or desktop space for those units that do not require platen ability. In addition, any given scanner installation can take advantage of the dockable nature of the accessory to save desktop space by using the platen only when necessary and stowing it when not in use.
To achieve the full benefit of such a device, the ease with which a customer can attach and detach the platen accessory is of high importance. Also reducing the complexity of the product elements that provide this docking interface is critical in reducing the overall cost of the sheet fed scanner and the platen accessory and improving the overall system reliability. In the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/618,739 the means employed to provide the detachable/dockable functionality involved a very complex series of mechanisms for orienting and moving the shared imager from the sheet fed scanning unit into the platen housing. In this invention, a simplified approach for accomplishing these functions is described that offers reduced complexity and improved customer interaction.